The Reason For The Season

 

THE REASON FOR THE SEASON

Jesus is the reason for the season.  And regardless of your religious or spiritual affiliation, I highly recommend his teachings as a path to a life of peace and joy,  One of his most powerful teachings was forgiveness, and I believe that this time of year – the Joy of Christmas and Hannukah, and the coming celebration of a New Year – is perfect for practicing forgiveness.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover that the prisoner was you.”  Lewis B Smeades

Resentment is a grievance or grudge held against another person.  It begins as a judgment that someone has mistreated you or behaved badly toward you in some way.  When the present time belief, feeling, or judgment that someone has done you wrong is carried into the future it becomes resentment. There are few things more treacherous than resentment.  It is an insidious poison that eats away at anyone who partakes of it, destroying health and happiness.  YOUR health and happiness.  You see, resentment is something we feel toward someone out there, but 99.9% of the ill effects of resentment are wreaked on the person harboring the resentment – not the person who is the object of the resentment.

And guess what:  It does not matter how justified you believe your resentment is – it is definitely going to diminish your capacity to be present to the current moment, diminish your ability to experience happiness, and make you sick.  Even if everyone in your life agrees that you were wronged, and that you have every ‘right’ to be resentful, YOU still suffer by harboring it. 

It does not matter how heinously you were treated by another person in the past.  As long as you hang on to that resentment YOU are the person hurting you in the present.  And the poison will seep into all your other relationships and human interactions.  

The antidote to resentment is forgiveness.  Yes, I know, how unfair.  Someone else does something hurtful, and YOU have to do the work of forgiving!  Actually, you don’t have to.  Like everything else, it is a choice.  You can go right on nurturing your resentment for as long as you are willing to reap the consequences: diminished access to your innate happiness, a compromised immune system, decreased energy, increased likelihood of heart disease and cancer, and the list goes on and on. 

 The root of “forgive” is the Latin word “perdonare,” meaning “to give completely, without reservation.”  The word was translated into German and then Old English as “forgiefan,” – meaning to give up, or allow.  In modern English forgive means to pardon, exonerate or absolve. In Aramaic the word for forgive  is “shbag” and it means to untie.

Forgiveness is the antidote to resentment, it is the path to freedom from all the ills and suffering that resentment creates.  Forgiveness is one of the most powerful life tools you will ever learn.

In our culture the practice of forgiveness most often involves one person (the one who was wronged) letting go of the ill feelings/anger that she/he has toward the person that has ‘caused’ the hurt.  When this is done sincerely and completely, the person doing the forgiving is immediately released from the creation of the ongoing harmful effects of resentment.  Note that this release occurs regardless of whether the person being forgiven ever knows about it.  It is the forgiver who is released.

Forgiveness is for YOU.  Forgiveness sets YOU free.  Forgiveness is first and foremost a selfish act.  Hooray for that!

Secondly, understand that you are forgiving the actor, the person you perceive as having hurt you.  You are NOT condoning the hurtful act.  In other words, when developing/choosing forgiveness for your former spouse who cheated on you, you are NOT making a statement that cheating is acceptable. 

It is true that if the person who hurt you is remorseful about what they did, then knowing that they have been forgiven can also be a significant release for them.  It is indeed a gift you can give another human being.  But, as the quote at the beginning of this chapter suggests, it is the forgiver who is immediately and most powerfully released from the suffering created by resentment.

When you harbor resentment toward another, you close your heart to them.  This may or may not have an impact on the person you are resenting.  It always and dramatically has an effect on you.  Any time part of your heart is closed off, you suffer.  Whether you are aware of it or not, it impacts your immune system, drains your energy, constricts your creativity and increases your ‘stress’ level.  Overall, it diminishes your ability to experience life fully and joyfully.  Most people walk around harboring multiple resentments.  Is it any wonder that happiness is so difficult to achieve? 

I am not suggesting that forgiveness is easy, only that it is very, very powerful.  As a life skill, it is one of the most transformational ones you will ever learn.  It will change you first and foremost, and that creates the opportunity for others in your life to change.  The first step is merely cultivating within yourself the desire to forgive. 

Wishing you the most Joyous of Holidays

Yes, It is Still NOW

It always will be. 

If you haven't read the previous blog about the Present Moment, please do so.  Because this blog is a continuation of that subject.

But first, I received an email from a reader last night who asked about my closing sentence of the blog: "When you can say yes to the moment at hand, and make it your friend no matter HOW it shows up, you will experience a freedom you have never imagined."  She wanted to know what that 'freedom' would look/feel like.

It feels like joy, laughter and creativity.  It feels like life is fun and easy, even when unpredictable.  It feels like you can't stop smiling.

NOW let's look at two other ways we rob ourselves of the present moment.  They are called Past and Future.  And they exist only in our minds.  Any moment that your mind is focused on the past or the future, you are not experiencing NOW.  All right, don't get your pantaloons in a twist.  Yes.  Our lives do require some planning for the future.  And yes the past can be useful as a tool, a reference for what worked and what didn't.  AND, remembering good times, good people, good experiences can be fun.  Just be aware that experiencing good times in the present is more fun and more rewarding than reliving the past.

So yes, there are those few exceptions where we use our memories of time gone by, and our imagination of times to come in positive ways.  Much more often though Past and Future are our tormenters.  The past is most often called to mind in the forms of regret, resentment, anger, judgment, and disappointment.  Dragging those feelings into the NOW does two things.  First, it releases the poison of those emotions into your mind and body again.  Second it obliterates your experience of the present moment.  The only good reason to drag those emotions/states into the present is to work on releasing them. 

When your mind and body are focused on remembered pain and suffering, you cannot experience the beauty and joy that is waiting for you in THIS moment.  Same thing with future tripping.  When our minds conjure pictures of the future, it is most often in the forms of worry, fear, anxiety, unease, trepidation.  We imagine all kinds of disagreeable or abhorrent possibilities that VERY likely will NEVER come to pass.  Yet we experience the pain and suffering of some imagined/illusory future right here in the present!  How crazy is that!!  Think about all the times you have made yourself anxious, scared, nervous, stressed out over a mental fabrication of something that never had life in the NOW! 

The present moment is our friend, and we are our own worst enemies!  We steal our own opportunity for joy and creativity and instead make ourselves sick with incessant trips to Past and Future.  You can put an end to this insanity. 

Let the past be the past.  If you are harboring resentments, regrets, disappointments - do the work to let them go.  You deserve to be free of them.

Plan for the future only as much as is necessary.  The future gets built in the present.  It is your relationship to the present that creates your future.  Can you embrace the present regardless of how it shows up?  When your answer becomes yes, you become a mastermind of the good life.

So consider this.  When you argue with what is, you lose.  Every time.  What is, already is.  It cannot be changed.  The only thing that is changeable is YOUR relationship to what is.  What you resist, persists.  It has to because you are giving energy to it.  When you cease resisting, and move into acceptance (which is the only sane approach to what already is), you create the possibility for something different to show up next.  Accept what is and imagine the next best thing you want to bring into being. 

Have you asked yourself today: "What is my relationship to this moment?"

The Most Important Relationships

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There are two relationships that determine most of what you experience in life:

1.  Your relationship with yourself

2.  Your relationship with the present moment

If either one of these relationships is dysfunctional, there is little hope of experiencing life as easy, joyful, fun and rewarding.  Yet most people never even think about the state of these relationships.  Consider this: Are you ever – is it even possible – to be not with yourself and not in the present moment?  Absolutely NOT!  The present moment is the only place we can ever actually be, and we are always there with ourselves. 

Of the two of these relationships, my experience of 20 plus years of coaching indicates that #2 is the most difficult one for people to “fix”.  For most people the present moment is NOT their friend.  And since all we have is the present moment, if you argue and fight with it continuously, you cannot create a joyful life.

This is how people fight with the present moment:

1.  We treat it as a means to and end.  Yes, YOU do this.  How many of your moments do you rush through just to get to some ‘future’ moment that seems more important?  Any moment you are rushing thru is just a means to some other moment.  And when you get to that moment how present are you? How many moments are you going to treat as throw-aways??? 

2.  We reject it or make it wrong.  It shows up not the way we want it to and we just want to change it, reject it, hold our breath until it goes away.

3.  We make it our enemy.  We complain about it, argue with it, blame someone for it.  Feel annoyed, exasperated, frustrated by it.

The present moment is our best friend.  It is the only place we can ever experience life and take action.  It is the only place we can create anything.  So why do we treat our best friend like it is a nuisance, a problem, an inconvenience, a burden, an obstacle, a hassle???

When you heal your relationship with the present moment, your entire experience of life will shift.  Start by asking yourself as often as you can throughout the day, “What is my relationship with this moment at hand?”  Be honest with your answer, and you will begin to see the insanity of our inability to be with the moment at hand in a welcoming manner.  You will begin to see the myriad of ways that we all make an enemy of the present.

When you can say yes to the moment at hand, and make it your friend no matter HOW it shows up, you will experience a freedom you have never imagined.

The Voices in Our Heads

We all have multiple voices in our heads that seem to have a life of their own.  Okay, I am NOT talking about the voice that tells you Great Aunt Sally is buried out in the back yard and wants you to rescue her.  I’m talking about the very real voices of all the people in our lives that have influenced us over the years.  Here are a couple of my personal favorites:

1.  Whenever it is a particularly gorgeous day (which happens a lot in our area) I always hear my departed mother exclaiming gleefully, “It’s a dilly, dilly day!”

2.  When I drop something in the kitchen I hear my (then) 10 year old daughter shouting, “Fiddlesticks.” (this comes with a visual of her friends looking at her with that “where do you come from?” scorn).

3.  Whenever anything REALLY goes wrong I immediately hear Tom Hanks intoning, “Houston, we have a problem.”

Now, these are all perfectly benign voices, and I actually enjoy them chiming in.  But most people also have a whole litany of voices that are not so pleasant to hear.  These are the voices that have hurt or belittled you in the past.  The parent who said you were unlovable, the teacher who said you would never do well, the boss who told you you weren’t good enough.  The friends who mocked you; the co-workers who criticized you; the family members who made light of your dreams; the spouse who highlights your shortcomings.

The present day issue is not that these things were said.  It is that they continue to play in your head, and continue to cause pain and dysfunction.  What I want you to know is that YOU have the right to invite these voices to cease and desist.  Any voice that does not speak to or acknowledge the good in you needs an eviction notice.

Here is a process for deleting these unwanted voices:

1. Become aware of them.  Everything begins with awareness.  Often, these voices have been playing so long that you no longer consciously hear them.  So start by repeating to yourself every day that you intend to tune in to any negative messages running in your head.  And if/when you find yourself feeling any negative emotion, stop and figure out what you are thinking and whose voice it is.

2. Look consciously at the message that is being repeated and ask if there is any truth in it that YOU can own in a positive way – any kernal of truth that could make you a better or happier person.  If so, rephrase it in your own words and make it a positive message to yourself.  Every time that old voice shows up, calmly inform it that its residency has been revoked (use your own style of ‘hit the road jack’).  Then repeat your new, self created positive message.  If the original message was completely out in left field, with no iota of validity, then laugh at it!  Talk back to it, like “You’re kidding, right?  That is so absurd it is hilarious.  I am so not that way.  I am _______________________.  Fill in the blank with the goodness in you that makes a lie of the voice. 

Understand that you will probably have to evict the unwanted voice more than once, and perhaps many times.  The longer the voice has been playing in your head the more deeply entrenched it will be.  Just stay vigilant to its presence and keep doing the steps above. 

Also, keep it about the message, the voice, not the original person who spoke the words.  No matter how off base, wrong, or hurtful the person was, it is not about them.  It is about you gaining freedom from the unwelcome voice that lives in your head.